Does your front yard need a makeover?
Need better curb appeal?
Or do you have a newly built home and are starting from scratch?
Certainly any of these scenarios can seem overwhelming to say the least.
See our essential steps as we share with you our process of landscaping a front yard.
You will find ideas for shrubs, flowers, low maintenance plants, hardscape ideas and time saving tips.
Everything you need to know to create a simply beautiful front yard.
I love a beautiful manicured yard, but I don’t have the time to spend hours each week on it.
With this in mind, we chose low maintenance plants that provide color and texture, yet do not require a lot of attention.
Scroll down for ideas to landscape your front yard that will give you the best curb appeal in the neighborhood.
How Much Does It Cost To Landscape a Front Yard?
Landscaping a front yard can cost between $1,500 to $5,000 on average and even more if you hire a landscaper.
This can vary with the size of your yard.
However, we are frugal and will share DIY ideas that will help you stay on budget, which will put a smile on your face!
What Time Of Year Is Best To Landscape?
The best time to begin landscaping and planting trees, shrubs, and perennials is in the months of April and May.
These spring months will give your plants the opportunity to grow and acclimate during the summer and fall.
However, the next best time to begin landscaping is the fall.
Fall is often overlooked as a time to landscape.
But, often it is a great time to purchase plants.
In fact during the month of September you will often find trees, shrubs and perennials on sale, which means more bang for your buck.
Also fall is also a great time of year for plants to acclimate in your garden.
In addition the temperatures begin to cool, yet the soil remains warm and promotes root growth.
Just be sure not to plant too late in the season.
Our Yard Before Updating Landscaping
A quick peek at the landscaping in our front yard, before we dug into it.
The photo on the left was taken in December the day we closed on our home.
And the one on the right is what our front yard looked like when spring rolled around.
Certainly we knew the inside of our home was a fixer upper, but the landscaping definitely needed some love too.
The shrubs were all overgrown and planted too close to the house.
In addition, the flower beds were unkempt and full of weeds.
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Where To Begin?
Whether your yard needs a makeover, more curb appeal or it’s not landscaped at all, you may ask yourself, “where do I start”?
Clearly, a great place to start is to tackle the weeds.
Without a doubt a landscape that is weed free immediately looks better.
Then it’s time to come up with a plan.
Landscape Design Plan
The basic elements of landscape design are:
Color: Keep in mind how colors interplay with the color of other basic elements, such as the color of your home.
Then repeat colors around the landscape.
They do not necessarily need to be the same plant, just the same color tone.
Then you’ll also want to pay attention to how the colors play off of each other.
As I was planning the landscaping for my front yard, I loved how the light green of the Halo dogwood played off the purple tones of the Barberry and Black Lace Elderberry.
Repeating those colors throughout my yard forms a cohesive color palette.
Planning The Landscape Design
Adding a Hardscape to our Front Yard Landscape
When we purchased our home it had this odd, sort of courtyard area.
It was enclosed by 2 brick columns and an iron railing.
However in this so called courtyard there was a small circle of grass and a hedge.
Clearly, it made no sense at all.
Not to mention that the columns were unstable and were easily demolished.
However, the foundation for the columns was another story!
With 3 feet of cement, it required a jack hammer to break up the concrete.
Including a hardscape in a landscape is an ideal way to expand outdoor living area.
Hardscapes compliment the “softscaping,” that is the trees, shrubs, and flowers that provide natural beauty.
Adding a small paver patio was just what our front yard landscape needed.
It provides a place to gather and sit with friends.
Without a large porch, we love this area we created in our front yard.
Once the paver patio was installed, we planted woolly thyme to soften the edges of the patio.
Front Yard Landscape Irrigation
If an automated irrigation system is in your budget, I would highly recommend it.
Certainly it’s difficult to manually keep a yard watered.
Since this was an existing landscape, there was already an irrigation system in place.
However, we extended flower beds and changed the overall watering pattern so adjustments needed to be made.
Also adding a drip irrigation system for the flower beds not only save water, but it also helps prevent weeds from sprouting.
This is an easy DIY that anyone can do.
And if you need help planning your irrigation system your local home improvement store can help.
Landscaping with Shrubs
The right foundation planting for most houses is a nice mix of evergreen and deciduous shrubs.
In fact, shrubs soften the hard lines of a house.
When selecting shrubs, think of mature height and width of the plants.
Above all read the tags on the plants and become familiar with their needs.
For example that cute little shrub at the nursery may soon grow to block the view from your window.
For instance in our front yard landscape we chose dwarf shrubs.
Choosing low maintenance plants that we do not need to prune, like our Halo Dogwoods and Little Lime Hydrangea.
Here are some of my favorite shrubs:
- Mugo Pine
- Halo Dogwood
- Black Lace Elderberry
- Dwarf Forsythia
- Boxwood
- Euonymus
- Barberry
- Butterfly Bush
- Hydrangea
- Burning Bush
- Snowball Bush
- Spirea
- Weilgela
What flowers are best for front yard?
Certainly a variety of perennials (flowers that come back year after year) can provide a lot of color when landscaping a front yard.
In addition, look for perennials that bloom at different times during the season.
This will provide you with color throughout the year.
Some of my favorite perennial flowers are:
- Yarrow
- Daylily
- Salvia
- Veronica
- Hosta
- Lavender
- Aster
- Chrysanthemum
- Purple Cone Flower
- Delphinium
- Hydrangea
- Peony
- Phlox
- Shasta Daisy
- Coreopsis
- Bleeding Heart
I also add a few annuals (flowers than only bloom for one season) to my garden as well.
This will add color that will last the entire season.
Some of my favorite annual flowers are:
- Petunia
- Zinnia
- Geranium
- Begonia
- Impatiens
- Cosmos
- Dahlias
- Marigold
- Pansies
- Snapdragons
- Sunflowers
Clearly, I like to use as many perennials in my yard as possible.
This is a big budget saver!
Planting flowers once and enjoying them year after year can save you hundreds of dollars over the years.
Not to mention as the perenials mature, they can be divided and transplanted to other areas of your landscape.
And who doesn’t love FREE flowers?!
For instance, the perennials I’ve planted in my front yard landscape are daylily, salvia, miniature rose, hydrangea and liatris.
For constant color throughout the summer I like to add a few annuals.
This year I planted zinnias and petunias.
Certainly it’s nice to switch things up a bit each year.
Keeping it Natural
When choosing plants for my yard I want to keep them as natural as possible.
First I select dwarf shrubs so they never need to be pruned.
Also choose perennials that do not become invasive.
Clearly, weeding out perennials that have taken over a flower bed is no fun!
Use curves to keep a natural looking landscape.
You’ll never see a straight line in nature.
Use plants to draw the eye towards the front door by lining the walkway with flowers and shrubs.
Compost Flower beds
Compost is an efficient and practical fertilizer.
Composed of decayed organic matter, compost is a basic tool for the organic gardener.
However it is a great way to keep weeds at bay as well.
In fact, adding a 1-2″ layer of compost will greatly reduce the number of weeds in your flower garden, which means less time weeding.
We have added compost to our flower beds for years.
Not only is it a huge time saver, but it also adds wonderful nutrients to the soil.
Your plants will love you!
Budget friendly ideas
Certainly installing a new landscape can be expensive, so here are some ideas that can save you money.
DIY what you can.
Without a doubt labor cost can rack up quickly.
If there is any way that you can do it yourself, then do it!
It will save you hundreds if not thousands of dollars.
Get plant starts from friends and family.
The design plan for my front yard included the Mary Todd Daylily.
And as it happened my neighbor happened to be thinning her daylily and gave me enough plants to have 12 mounds of daylilys.
You’ve got to love FREE plants!
Another tips is to buy perennials and shrubs in the fall when they are on sale.
Look for a wholesaler in your area that may sale to the public a few times a year.
That’s exactly what we did when landscaping our front yard.
We were able to get our shrubs 50% off the retail price.
Also most landfills offer compost.
It is much less expensive than getting it through a retailer.
Add a barrier between the flower beds and the grass.
We used the inexpensive professional grade of plastic edging.
Certainly, edging is a must, or you will be weeding grass out of your flower beds.
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Conclusion
As you can see by following these essential steps you too can create a front yard landscape that you’ll love.
And with our budget saving tips you can save yourself hundreds if not thousands of dollars.
Are you inspired to up the curb appeal at your home?
Do you have a few favorite ideas you’d love to try?
Please comment below and share, we love hearing from you.
Thanks for spending some time with us today!
We hope you’ve been inspired to add a few of these front yard landscaping ideas to your home.
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WE HOPE TO BRING YOUR HOME TO THE SUNNY SIDE OF THE STREET!
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Thank you for introducing me to perennial flowers and giving some examples to use for your front yard. Designing my front yard to have as many flowers as possible seemed exciting at first, but I realized that not all flowers might withstand the harsh climate of our area. If I can solve that problem by getting a landscaping expert to plant some of these perennials, I’ll be sure to have a satisfying yard in the end.
Adding the right perennial flowers to your garden not only adds interest and beauty, but will save you money over the years. Choosing perennials that withstand the elements of your area is wise. Check and see if there are free classes offered in your area that can help you choose perennial plants that will thrive in your area. That is exactly what Steph and I did. Free classes are offered often at nurseries and water conservatory districts. Expert gardeners in your area are a great resource for choosing perennial varieties that will thrive. Good luck!
Hmm..instead of installing then maintaining an irrigation system to largely support a lawn that statistics show won’t be used much, I favour more of the meadow plants you show such as liatris and daylily. These and other water thrifty plants should be dominant in modern design, not used and color and texture accents. In my opinion!
Thank you Brent for visiting our site. We have actually removed a large portion of our lawn. However, we feel like we need a little lawn in the front yard to ground the space. We have no lawn in the backyard and we do find ourselves using the lawn in the front yard. I do respect your opinion and do love adding a variety of plants to add interest and texture to my garden. We are not professionals here, we just enjoy our space.